The Heart of Panem
by BuPias
Summary: Katri Cresta travels to the Capitol against her brother's and mother's will to participate in the annual tribute to the ones who died in the revolution. She will meet Primrose the lovely daughter of Katniss and together they will discover Panem's history.
1. Chapter 1

_**The Heart of Panem - A Hunger Games Fanfiction**_

_Because the story is not over yet_

_**Chapter 1 - The Dream**_

Finnick has been calling for 5 minutes, but I can't stand up. I cannot open my sleepy eyes and just face the world. No. The dark night has come and gone now and while it stayed, with it's outside soothing sounds and calming lullabies, all I could do was think. I thought about long lost dreams, my 15 years of innocence are not spared from long lost dreams. Desires and expectations I wish to one day accomplish, but that I am sure I never will.

My job is simple, go to school hoping my mother doesn't collapse, and then return to watch over her. She was happy once, then she got sad and crazy they say, and, what it seemed to be the perfect cure, made her even worse. She married dad but he never returned. He fought during the revolution and he died in honor. My brother and me inherited his brokenhearted wife. But I love her.

She tells me about their wedding and how it was beautiful and big, she recalls the music and the smell of the cake and then she cries. Their marriage showed the world that district 13 was a happy place, but a place I will never know.

Annie Cresta it's her name and she comes from district 4. Back when the Games spread the carnage and massacre of death, my mother and my father won richness and glory but they also got nightmares and moribund memories. They were never alone or happy again until the day they found each other's hearts.

After he died and when Finnick was just a little brat, mom traveled to the dreamy place of the Capitol, she said "You can't imagine how big and crazy it is. How surreal!" There she handed a capsule with my father's DNA, and that's how she got_ me_.

My dream is to travel and meet all the great places they did, I want to talk with the people and smell the ocean's shore, go to 13, 4, the Capitol... I don't want to be stuck, I don't want to wake up, go to school and return home with always the same purpose, I want to be allowed to dream and fulfill those expectations. But my faith is traced and well designed.

This was the matter I thought about intensively last night but what I didn't know was that this fatal and predetermined idea was going to change, because downstairs a glassy bottle broke in the wooden floor and my mother yelled loudly my name.

KATRI

I followed the hysterical voice and in front of the fire place my mother was lying in her old white dress, Finnick' s hands were bloody and hurt and a man, a tall one, stood there with a perfectly starched dark blue suit. His hair was stiff with such a big amount of gel; his presence bothered me because I knew exactly who was that demanding figure. President Paylor was standing right there in my poor humble home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 - The Tribute**

I quickly grabbed mother and made her stood up, Finnick ran to the old and shabby cupboard above the rusty sink and picked up a red metal box with a white cross on it. After sitting my mother on the old armchair I peered through the window, outside two men wearing black armors and sunglasses waited patiently for the ruler.

'I didn't mean to...' Paylor said.

'Make him leave!' she cried. Tears running down her face. Those were suffered and made her look weaker.

I knelt before her and tried to ease her pain. Finnick was now facing the man with his hands covered in gauze.

'Get out!' he yelled. I have never seen my brother so mad before. His eyes were widely open and I swear I could watch his blood pumping on the veins visible through the tanned skin. 'She has decided, so leave.'

'I beg you to reconsider it.'

'No.'

Mom kept on crying and my head started to pant; it was difficult to understand what was really going on. On TV he seemed like a good man but here begging for my mother and her mercy, he just seemed desperate.

'It's a tribute. A good thing.' the President claimed.

'Fighting against the Capitol was also supposed to be a good thing. Wining was supposed to be a good thing. But it killed my father.'

I finally raised my voiced, I left the sweet smell that my mouth owned from last night' s dinner leave towards the air and I spoke. 'What's going on?'

'Nothing.' Finnick quickly added.

'Perhaps you could tell them, it is a good thing.' addressed me the man.

'What is?' I asked.

'We're doing a tribute in honor of the ones who died seventeen years ago fighting for our country. And that includes your father. It's in the Capitol just two brief days. We take you there.'

'You're honoring dad. Now?' I could not understand why now, after so many years of pain and sorrow. Why only 17 later would they remember of this? But I knew it was a good thing and it would be my first travel and I would do it for dad.

'Well, we do it every year. We sent you letters but you have never showed, so I thought it was better to come in person this time.'

'Oh we got your letter, but maybe we didn't show up because we didn't want to.' Finnick snapped. Now I was the mad one. They never told me about it. Why?

'What? They are honoring dad and you never told me?'

'This is hard for mom. You have got to understand that.'

I couldn't, I couldn't understand why they kept this from me.

'Well, I guess there is nothing I can do.' the President opened carefully the door.

'Good. And you-' Finnick, my own blood, looked at me ferociously '- go to your room.'

My brother approached mother and cleared her wet face. I ran to my place, my sanctuary where I can be myself: My room. Upstairs I couldn't let it go, I had to do something, I had to go and do this for my father. So I opened the window and without further thinking I shouted to the head of state, who was about to leave the porch.

'I'll do it!' he looked up surprised 'Tell me when and where and I_ will_ go.'

'Are you sure?' his voice was tenuous.

'Yes.'

'There is a train leaving tomorrow at 2 p.m., we will make the tribute a week from now.' he stood on his way straight to the car.

Tribute, I know that this is a very unfortunate word. Before it meant blood and possible death, and now, according to what I had committed to do, it meant inner peace and eternal glory.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 - The Train**

10 minutes. In ten minutes the hysterical sound of the train would break the serene environment inside the station. I was starting to feel nervous, my empty stomach was glued to my lungs preventing me from breathing properly. I wonder how will Finnick react when he realizes I am not there. I started to doubt and to think that perhaps it would be better to turn around and leave, but what kind of a dreamer would I be then? Would I just walk away from my wishes?

After a careful thinking process I decided to stay and wait when it finally appeared. It was big, fast and mostly silver, not the precious metal kind of silver, it was the color, silver, it grabbed my look completely. It sopped as it entered, quietly. My mind lied; I recalled trains as noisy and ugly creatures, dark and steamy, scary. This one was mesmerizing.

I entered with some other people and the place filled me with amazement. It had crystal cups and they didn't move out of the mahogany tables covered with linen towels, no matter how fast the train went they were always still. Everything was, the objects, the time and specially my mind were still.

I couldn't think, I was frozen with guilt because I only thought about me and I forgot my mother, her pain while watching my father's picture somewhere on TV must be immense, but what I wanted was stronger than the love for my family. I WAS SELFISH!

I needed to fix it. But how, I couldn't get back, not after I have almost traveled two districts now. That's when I knew I had to rest; I had to stick myself in one of those majestic rooms and die for one night. I lied in a single and lonely compartment with my clothes still on. Unfortunately, I didn't die for one night but for twenty minutes only, not because I couldn't sleep, but because something... somebody awoke me.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a very agitated cry. A baby. It was, with no doubt, a boy. A three-year-old maybe, due to his fluent talking. I stood stirred, the room was dark but outside someone had turned the lights on. We must have stopped because the woods on my window were still and quiet.

'That's ok, don't worry.' A woman calmly requested in the hallway. I was motionless like the tree peeking on my room's window.

The shadow of her feet going back and forward transpired through the small gap between the door and the cold soil. She was a mother rocking her baby. For a few moments the sound of her voice singing, the sound of her feet walking, the sound of her baby crying kept on going until they stopped completely. Just for a few seconds there was no noise and the only light present was the one that came from the hallway, but this time no shadows.

That serene universe would die rapidly the moment after. My door banged against the parallel wall and a girl, around my age, entered the room, closed the door, knelt before the entrance and peeked through the lock.

She probably did not see me because of the darkness and I couldn't distinguish her clothes well enough either. But my eyes were adapted to the night already so I was sure it was a young woman. The light point input on the ceiling lit up... so they were motion sensed.

I then realized: medium high, skinny, blonde hair, checkered skirt and black varnished shoes. She sighed still backwards and then turned scrolling her back against the door through the wood and sat when her bottom met the ground. That's when she noticed me.

'I'm so sorry!' she rose.

'That's ok. I guess…?'

Her face was confused as a fish that just encountered a swimming doe.

'Did I awake you?'

'No. Don't worry.' I explained.

'Do you mind if I stay here. Just for a while.' her eyes begged. So I thought about it... but something else came to me.

'Whom are you running from?' It wasn't a clever question. I let it leave my mouth without any careful thinking.

'My mother.' A long silence followed.

'Me too.' I said.

'I stay quiet if you stay quiet.' it was a challenge.

'Stay quiet? About what?' we both laughed hard.

'Your skin' she started 'it's white like sugar cubes. You're either from four or maybe… twelve… But that's impossible, right?' she smiled.

'I'm from nine but my parents are "fourthers".'

She sat on my bed and I pulled my knees up to my chin making some more room.

'I'm Rose, You?' She extended her hand.

'My name is Katri Odair.'

'Nice to meet you Sugar Cube Odair.' Our hands touched.


End file.
